The reason for this issue is ignorance of the intended meaning of these ayaat and ahaadeeth. And I say: there is no problem – alhamdulillaah – nor is there any contradiction or discrepancy, for the meaning of the hadeeth is that a person’s deeds could never be used as a payment for al-Jannah nor are they of equal value to it. For Allah’s blessings upon His slaves are abundant and a slave’s actions are a form of gratitude for these blessings. They cannot amount to a single one of Allah’s blessings, whether that be the blessing of vision of the blessing of hearing, so then how could one’s deeds be a payment for al-Jannah or of equal value to it?!

And as for those ayaat, the meaning that they are communicating is that deeds are a cause for entering al-Jannah, so whoever performs righteous good deeds, believes in the Messenger (ﷺ), follows him and performs good deeds will enter al-Jannah as a result of that.

But the type of deed that is being affirmed as entering one into al-Jannah is a deed which acts as a cause for one to enter al-Jannah, and the particle baa in these ayaat is called “the baa of causation”.

The second reason: That the hadeeth lacks authenticity in the first place. So it could be a fabricated hadeeth, or it could be one which is weak and not acted upon. So apparent contradiction could arise from this.

The fourth reason: That the hadeeth in question contains some information that acts as a supplement to what is in the Qur’an. So you might think this to be a contradiction or discrepancy when that isn’t actually the case.

Say, “I do not find within that which was revealed to me [anything] forbidden to one who would eat it unless it be a dead animal or blood spilled out or the flesh of swine – for indeed, it is impure – or it be [that slaughtered in] disobedience, dedicated to other than Allah. But whoever is forced [by necessity], neither desiring [it] nor transgressing [its limit], then indeed, your Lord is Forgiving and Merciful.” [6:145]

However there is no contradiction or discrepancy between these, nor is there any problem. For the prohibition of eating any predatory animal possessing fangs or talons is something which the Sunnah added to the Qur’an, and this falls under Allah’s statement:

But as for the implication in that ayah [6:145] that the prohibited foods are limited to these items, this is not really a problem, for the phrasing in it which implies the limit comes as a sort of pointed response and rejoinder to the disbelievers who used to permit the consumption of these forbidden things. So the ayah is saying, “The only prohibited items out of those food which you consider permissible to eat are these ones”. So the restrictive language is in relation to their claim; it does not mean that everything else besides these mentioned items is permissible.

This is like if you were talking to someone who didn’t believe that [the famous poet] al-Mutanabbi was a poet, you might say, “If Mutanabbi isn’t a poet, then no one is a poet” [lit. “There is no poet other than al-Mutanabbi”]. Your intent is a sort of pointed rejoinder to his words and an affirmation that al-Mutanabbi was indeed a poet but without any intent to deny that there are other poets. And in Arabic rhetoric, this is a known way of turning a statement on its head by using this type of restrictive language.

The fifth reason: That the ayah and the hadeeth belong to the category of the mutashaabih (ambiguous) texts which must be referred back to the muhkam (clear) texts. An example of this is the prohibition of usury – whether it be in small amounts of large amounts – that comes in the Sunnah, compared against Allah’s statement:

But there is no issue with this ayah, for it is one of the mutashaabih texts which is referred back to the muhkam texts. In line with that, it is said that there is no implication present here in contradiction to this ayah. Or it could be that this ayah is referring to a specific event during the time of the revelation, or that that those who deal in usury will eventually end up with this situation, because they begin with a small amount and then it becomes multiplied until it reaches a considerable amount.